So how is everyone holding up? Is your area coming out of having to stay home? Stores, parks, beaches, barber shops, beauty parlors, restaurants starting to open where you are?
If your area is opening up – are you going to be running out to go everywhere? Or do you feel it is not safe enough yet and maybe you should stay home awhile longer?
We tend towards the second choice. Since he bought all the food we have plenty to eat in the house – maybe for the rest of the year or longer. Okay, we have been thinking of looking for sales on Diet Coke 2 liter – presuming the store actually has some when they advertise it – as we are down to 3 full bottles and one almost empty one and have been drinking diet orange drink and diet grape drink alternating which one I mix – and he has iced tea for lunch. He likes the orange better and I like the grape better. Yes, we have lots of good water from our tap and drank water only for the first month – I finally had the idea to fill 2 quart plastic bottles and keep them in our refrigerator to keep the water cold for drinking(which are used for same in our RV when traveling so water cold on a hot day and water to drink is from home – as is the water in our water tanks in the RV). We have been drinking the Diet Coke very sparingly – not at all until I pointed out to him in early May that the best by date was May 18 – so we would not drink it so we did not finish it off – or we could drink it slowly before it got too old and the taste is gone.
One big problem we have had is mail – coming in and going out. In the late 1980s or early 1990s we opened up a box at a USPS office for our craft business. We lived in an apartment back then and did not want mail addressed to a business coming to our apartment. There was a Post Office about a block and a half from our apartment – but no boxes were available, so we went to the next nearest Post Office and opened the box there – where it still is. Our home is in close to where our apartment was, but is in a third community which shares a Post Office (and zip code) a different community and that Post Office is far from our house – further than the one near our old apartment (which is in fairly easy walking distance) and than the one where our businesses' box was. We started having problems with mail delivery to our house maybe 7 or 10 years ago and have changed the address on most of our personal mail which used to come to our house to the box, as well as the mail that I receive as Treasurer of both my embroidery club and our reenactment unit. In normal times we basically went to the Post Office where our box is every day Monday to Friday to check for incoming mail and mail outgoing mail. If we went on a trip we could put a hold on the mail in the box. If we needed something delivered – it has been sent to the box and was inside the Post Office and safe. This system worked great. Today I am talking about the problem with the mail coming in to us.
The last two Sundays in March we went to the Post Office late Sunday night (forgive me if I repeating myself here) and picked up the mail for the entire week and mailed the outgoing mail for the week. I had figured out that since this Post Office closed on Saturdays at 1pm and was not open on Sundays – there were the fewest people in it for the longest time at that point and would have the least chance of us catching the corona virus then. Unfortunately our local paper started publishing the number of people who were ill by community and the community that Post Office and the Wendys we normally went to for daily lunch – are in had rather a high count of people who were ill and husband decided we should not go there for some time.
So – all our mail was nice and safe in our Post Office box – but we had no access to it! Aha!! Have the mail what I called forwarded and the Post Office calls “Temporary change of address”. I went online and set the mail up to be sent to us – since I did it online it cost $1.05 by credit card for verification that we are the box owners. We were only able to enter the name of our craft business – the name the box is in - as it is a “business” box. The wording implied that all mail would be sent to us and we were then responsible to forward it to those who it was addressed to - great, they are all us.
We waited for the forwarded mail to come. I had called and checked the second day of the forwarding to make sure that the Post Office had received the paperwork and they had. We kept waiting – it should take 7-10 days for each item to reach us from the Post Office – after 2 weeks of no mail I called. Since it is a “business” box only mail in the name of the business can be forwarded (okay, most months a bank statement and a credit card statement – and we are not currently using the latter). The woman I spoke with was very nice and offered to mail the accumulated mail in an envelope to us to give us a chance to figure it out. I had hoped we would be going again in a week or two and thanked her profusely. I did go online and change the mailing address for the two main magazines I get to come straight here. I also emailed the members of my embroidery group and told them to only mail things – such as the dues I was collecting in April and May for end of May annual renewal – to me at home and not at the box and did the same with my accounting clients for anything they would need to mail to me. Husband did the same with the members of our reenacting unit.
Two weeks later – same problem. I called again and offered to pay for the mail be mailed to us again – she said she would do so at no charge. I made a third call – this time waiting over 3 weeks and again she was able to mail us the mail. Then it was 3 weeks again – this time I asked her if there was some way to - without having to go into the Post Office – there was some way to close the box in the business name and reopen it immediately in one of our names – even if we had pay the annual fee again. This started a multi-day discussion involving her, two other employees at the Post Office and the Postmaster. What they finally worked out is for them to change the name on the box and change it from business to personal. It would take a couple of weeks – at that point – 2 weeks no problem. They have mailed us our mail twice since then. I was suppose to call yesterday and check how it was coming – but ran out of time. Today I was going to call – but I was called and it suppose to all be changed and all the mail set up to be forwarded – we will know for sure in about in a week – and the accumulated mail is again being mailed to us.
Since I use a Quicken to keep track of our finances I had the advantage of having all the bills we pay being memorized with the day of the month I normally sent out the payment (such as a bill due 30th of the month – would be dated to be written on 23rd of the month) and it repeats monthly, quarterly, or annually – bi-monthly I have to adjust myself and have bills due same set as monthly as change the date due – I knew I would not miss paying any bills. I also figured that bank statements can always be reconciled after the fact. It was the unexpected item that I was concerned about – luckily there have not been any surprises. When a bill will be do I call and, generally by computer on their end, check the balance due – if any – and due date. If I do not have the bill I write a cover letter giving the name on the account, account number, amount I am paying and the check number and letting them know that I am doing this as I can't get to the Post Office to pick up mail.
Hopefully we will be getting the mail forwarded and all will even off – of course we are depending on the same Post Office that we were having trouble with to deliver the mail from the box to us when it is forwarded, but the mail carrier has been doing well so far with the mail when it comes from the the Box, as well mail which does come here.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Sometimes what seems like the perfect thing to do – is no longer good at all when the situation changes. One has to figure out what to do, to make things work as needed. It sometimes takes a bit of creative thinking to do this.
Plus – we should be grateful for our Post Office employees who are doing their best to help us keep getting our mail despite the health risks to them (next time you lick an envelope to seal it – remembering people will be touching that envelope and many others and risk getting ill from them. They are making sure we have bills so we can timely pay them, checks so we have the money to pay the bills, plus the cards, photos and letters (yes, people still mail send same) that are sent to us by loved ones and friends. (I just found out that my mom does not have to go out of her apartment and downstairs to the mail boxes to get her mail – it is being brought to her – I am going to mail her some “cute” photos of my Teddy bear village under the stay home at order – the summer setup also when I get it set up later this month – I hope the photos make her smile.)
Please all stay well and return next week for the problems sending mail out we have had.
No comments:
Post a Comment